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Fear nothing - that is essentially what "dread" plus "nought" means. The name might seem a strange one for a garment, but if you consider that dreadnoughts were worn onboard ships, you can appreciate the colorful name perhaps as much as the seafaring men must have appreciated the thick protection dreadnoughts offered from the elements. The clothes and the cloth, first called "fearnought" in the late 18th century, came long before the battleship. Not until 1906 did the British Navy launch HMS Dreadnought, the first battleship to have a main armament consisting entirely of big guns all of the same caliber. All ships of this type were then called "dreadnoughts." That particular type of battleship soon became obsolete, but their legacy lives on in the extended third sense of "dreadnought."

Examples of dreadnought in a Sentence

poor gas mileage did little to stem the popularity of that dreadnought of the roadways: the SUV

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dreadnought.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.